Yesterday i decided to post stuff which tends to pose some kind of difficulty to Spanish speakers learning Englihs. I bet that if you follow my advice you'll surely make a step forward or at least become more realistic and less frustrated if progress in your learning curve is not as quick as you would expect. As I always say to my students the teacher or trainer feeds you with the language but it's you who has to chew it and digest it!
Yesterday I published stuff on presentations skills for those brushing up their business English and the never-properly learned present perfect and the often hated conditionals. In older postings there's info on the use of say and tell and similar verbs, which i am sure you'll find very very helpful! Enjoy your learning!

Confident presentations

Now I am going to post a compilation of links and phrases i have found which give very interesting advice on giving presentations. This is going to be of use for those whose confidence is a bit shaky when having to prepare for and give presentations.

The piece of advice i, as a teacher, would give you is that preparation is the key to success and that it's normal to be nervous, very few people do not get nervous when having to speak in public. The other big piece of advice is not to panick when you you find yourself in a sticky situation, like not remembering how to say something in English or if you realise you've forgotten to say something important or any these little glitches and problems. These can happen to absolutely every person on earth, ok some more often than others but hey!, whether it is giving presentations in a foreign or in your own language. The key is to be prepared. This posting will give you the resourses for many of the potential situations you may face when presenting.

Good reading and watching!

The following is taken from:

http://www.effective-public-speaking.com/starting/menu.php
More links below

In modern English, presentations tend to be much less formal than they were even twenty years ago. Most audience these days prefer a relatively informal approach. However, there is a certain structure to the opening of a presentation that you should observe

1. Get people's attention

2. Welcome them

3. Introduce yourself

4. State the purpose of your presentation

5. State how you want to deal with questions

Get people's attention

If I could have everybody's attention · If we can start. · Perhaps we should begin? · Let's get started

Welcome them

Thank you for coming today. · Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. · On behalf of our company, I'd like to welcome you.

Introduce yourself

My name's Jane Shawre. I'm responsible for travel arrangements.

· For those of you who don't know me, my name's Tom Strwotter.

· As you know, I'm in charge of public relations.

· I'm the new Marketing Manager.

State the purpose of the presentation

This morning I'd like to present our new processor.

· Today I'd like to discuss our failures in the Japanese market and suggest a new approach.

· This afternoon, I'd like to report on my study into the German market.

· What I want to do this morning is to talk to you about our new mobile telephone system.

· What I want to do is to tell you about our successes and failures in introducing new working patterns.

· What I want to do is to show you how we've made our first successful steps in the potentially huge Chinese market

State how you want to deal with questions.

· If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them as we go along.

· Feel free to ask any questions.

· Perhaps we can leave any questions you have until the end?

· There will be plenty of time for questions at the end


My recommendation is to learn the couple of expressions in each section you fell more comfortable with by heart.

You'll notice or have noticed that Let's and I'd like to, I am going to... come up very often, these are what you want to start using!

http://www.business-english.com/signposting/exercise1.html

http://www.effective-public-speaking.com/

GIVING PRESENTATIONS: USEFUL LANGUAGE

1. If you get your facts wrong.

I am terribly sorry. What I meant to say was this.
Sorry. What I meant is this.

2. If you have been going too fast and your audience is having trouble keeping up with you.

Let me just recap on that.
I want to recap briefly on what I have been saying.

3. If you have forgotten to make a point.

Sorry, I should just mention one other thing.
If I can just go back to the previous point, there is something else that I forgot to mention.

4. If you have been too complicated and want to simplify what you said.

So, basically, what I am saying is … this.
So, basically, the point I am trying to get across is this.

5. If you realize that what you are saying makes no sense.

Sorry, perhaps I did not make that quite clear.
Let me rephrase that to make it quite clear.

6. If you cannot remember the term in English.

Sorry, what is the word I am looking for?
Sorry, my mind has gone blank. How do you say ‘escargot’ in English?

7. If you are short of time. Time is running out.

So just to give you the main points.
As we are short of time, this is just a quick summary of the main points.

8. When you want to make your next point, you ‘move on’.

Moving on to the next point.

I’d like to move on to the next point if there are no further questions.

9. When you want to change to a completely different topic, you ‘turn to’.

I’d like to turn to something completely different.

Let’s turn now to our plans for next year.

10. When you want to give more details about a topic you ‘expand’ or ‘elaborate’.

I’d like to expand more on this problem we have had in Chicago.

Would you like me to expand a little more on that or have you understood enough?

I don’t want to elaborate any more on that as I’m short of time.

11. When you want to refer back to an earlier point, you ‘go back’.

Going back to something I said earlier, the situation in Chicago is serious.

I’d like to go back to something Jane said in her presentation.

12. When you want to refer back to an earlier point, you ‘go back’.

Going back to something I said earlier, the situation in Chicago is serious.

I’d like to go back to something Jane said in her presentation.

13. To just give the outline of a point, you ’summarize’.

If I could just summarize a few points from John’s report.

I don’t have a lot of time left so I’m going to summarize the next few points.

14. To repeat the main points of what you have said, you ‘recap’.

I’d like to quickly recap the main points of my presentation.

Recapping quickly on what was said before lunch, ……

15. For your final remarks, you ‘conclude’.

I’d like to conclude by leaving you with this thought ……

If I may conclude by quoting Karl Marx …….

I always recommend taht you learn the expressions and phrases you feel more at ease with and that you personalise them, study them by using your name, your company's name, etc.

Links and resources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/business/talkingbusiness/unit3presentations/1opening.shtml it has several links within the same tab

http://www.business-english.com/signposting/exercise1.html

http://www.effective-public-speaking.com/

www.Ted.com as examples of fantastic presentations: visuals, warm-ups, jokes, tone of voice, emphasis…

English 365 (CUP) purple and bluish book both have material and listenings

In company (MacMillan), unit 12

Business Vocabulary in Use (CUP) written by Bill Mascull has also material on that.

Videos on www.youtube.com :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmjGz4PS6sI&p=CBC9B0E3479C39F4&playnext=1&index=44

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV-z_yBrS3s&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdGgDEjmGhM&NR=1

speak slowly video (not only for presentations):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ttDTszXG4M

among many others…

I think i have provided references of all the material i have used. Any question, leave a comment and i'll get back to you.

The Infamous Conditionals

Lots of people seem to have problems with conditionals. I think it's because the basic tenses have never been learned properly, students have never been told how to really really use them so it drags to the conditional use. So it's not your fault if you still have problems using them. The not exhaustive posting here should help you have a clearer idea on how to use the infamous conditionals!

(Below you'll see the word likely, what does it mean? something is likely to happen= es probable que ...)

Something that is very important to bear in mind when choosing what conditional type to use is what you have in mind , what you want to convey/express. Think about:

How likely is it?

a. it’s always like this!

b. it’s very likely (if the condition happens and it probably will)

c. not likely / impossible (that's why we always give the example of the lottery, cos it's almost impossible to win the lottery!)

d. impossible now because you are going to say something about / in the past

and When , the moment in time it happens/ will happen / would happen…

a. I am talking about sth that is always like this

b. Refers to now , It will likely happen in the future

c. It refers to now, a present situation (but hypothetical condition)

d. It refers to the past (recent or far)

Each of these options will , or should, help you choose between a combinations of tenses to for the most suitable conditional type depending your message.

Besides, the tense combination can not be altered.

____________________________________________________________________________

The so-called first conditional:

It’s not a true conditional, because the IF is not exactly a condition. It’d be better to use WHEN instead.

The two events happen. It’s a FACT, A UNIVERSAL TRUTH, SOMETHING GENERAL.

The present simple tense is the one which describes facts and truths and permanent things. So it makes sense that both clauses are present simple.

If present simple > present simple

If you heat water to 100º C , it boils.

when i finish early , i (always) go to the libary for a little while.

It refers to likely events in the (near) FUTURE if the condition is met (if sth happens).

VERY LIKELY TO HAPPEN.

If / unless / providing … present simple /, future

If I finish early , I will pick you up.

The second:

It refers to unlikely / impossible or almost impossible situations NOW. It’s an unreal current situation.

This is where the I wish could come into play… (Remember: I wish SVO … means “Ojalá”)

If past simple , conditional (would , could…+infinitive)

If I finished early , I would come and pick you up

If I could ski, I would go skiing often.

The third conditional:

It refers to a completely hypothetical situation because you are saying it now but it refers to PAST condition and past outcome. There is nothing you can do about it now. You can not change the past. So it’s unreal too.

If past perfect , would have participle

If I had known this (but i didnt know it), I would have asked to lead the project (now it's too late).

And there's still the mixed conditionals, to be posted later!

Present perfect and Past Simple for Spaniards

Learning a foreing language as an adult is like learning to drive a car. There's lots of different little but important actions to take into account: sit on the seat, fasten your seatbelt, check the rear-view mirrors, the ignition key, wait till the light goes off, turn the key, push the clutch and the gas pedal, you release the handbrake, and long etc of little actions that first are a list of things that little by little become mechanical. By repetition, we stop thinking what and how to do them. Learning English is very similar, from my way of understanding the process. When we build a sentence we have to "think" what we are going to say: present or past, finished or unfinished, is it a he or she or an it or a there or is it plural? is there a time reference, was this for a finished or unfinished action, the object goes immidiately after the verb, not after the time reference, etc. But it all should become more unconscious step by step.



Again, like in many other verb structures in English, we not only have to look at whether the action is finished or unfinished but also if there is any kind of time reference. A finished action does not necessarily refer to a recent past, as many of you often think.

So let’s look at what should be considered:

- finished or unfinished?
- is there or am I using a time reference (adverb or adverbial phrase)?
- is there an impact on the now, the present?
- Is when important? Are we saying when something happened?( = if the action, what happened is the relevant thing to get across, not when it took place)
These are clues to help us choose what verb tense to use, present perfect or past simple.

Let’s look at them in more detail:

a. Finished/over or unfinished/not over action or event or situation:

Time references like for , since, how long, so far, until now, over the last few weeks, recently, these last few days if the action started in the past and it is still valid now, you are still doing it.

Mary has worked in XXX since 2001
She has worked in XXX for 9 years
I have known Sara since we were at university
since I started to work here
for many years.

The tense here, Has worked, have known, indicates that she stills works for XXX . And that she still know Sara (Sara nor I have died and there’s some kind of relationship) That, if now is 2010, she started to work for XXX 9 years ago. *
Starting is one specific moment in the past, from the moment you start, you are/ you work.

The idea of working in a certain place can be expressed in a number of ways DEPENDING ON THE TIME REFERENCE and the TENSE you use.

Now compare it with:
Mary worked in XXX for 9 years

Do we know when she started to work there?
Do we know if she still works there?

Finished action, she doesn’t work there anymore because we use the verb in past tense, which means the working there is finished. Then, what’s the “for 9 years” if we’ve seen that for is commonly used in the present simple? For expresses duration of an action or situation or state. Many Spaniards would say “during”.

So when you want to know the duration of a certain thing you use:
How long have you worked…?
How long did you work…?

(how long are you going to…?)

The most appropriate answer is .. I have been…. For a few hours/a few days/ a week/ two months/ a long time/ ages…or since Monday last week/ 2001, I was a university, etc the specific moment in the past the action/situation started

So we can see that for to express duration can be used for a finished action and for an unfinished action! That is a lot of information here!! So watch out.


b. Past (=finished) action is there an impact or results on the now, the present?

I have washed my hands (so now I can cook, now they are clean and ready to touch food), I have sent the email (so this is done, we can now forget about this)

It’s usually a recent past, but not necessarily. Here we can also use time references like just and already or yet or today, this morning (if still in the morning), this afternoon (if still afternoon),etc


c.


d. Is when important? Are we saying when something happened?( = if the action, what happened is the relevant thing to get across, not when it took place)

I have studied at university and I have done many different jobs so I have acquired many skills. I have also travelled a bit and I have studied photography to make the most of my trips. I have lived in a few countries…. IN MY LIFE and my life is not finished so present perfect, when I did all this is not important, if when was important, I would use the past simple. You can also use before here to justify your experience in sth.

I first went to England as a young teenager, when I completed my secondary school, in 1994 I went to university and after that I moved to Scandinavia to learn Swedish. In 2005 I studied photography. AS soon as I finished, I started to work for an art gallery.

So when you ask about
Have you ever been…? (in your life)
No I have never been

The most fascinating person I have ever met…

You are talking about your life experiences, and your life is not finished! There’s plenty more to do and experience, isn’t there?

Sample sentences:

Llevo días haciendo...
Hace mucho que…Hice (past) / Hago...(present perfect) Watch out, do not "trust your spanish present simple of hago)
Hace muchos días que no vengo a clase.
Hace mucho tiempo que no hablo en inglés
I haven’t spoken in English for a long time /for many days.
Anna has been to Rome. She went there a few months ago (different from Anna has gone to Rome!)
She has worked with msf for over a year
She has just started her English class
Carla and Eric have known each other for years/since they worked together in the field.
etc

As you can see Spanish often uses the time reference at the begining of the sentence, whereas in English we tend to put it at the end (depending on how we word the sentence).

This is not an exhaustive explanation but sorts some of the problems you might have.
hope it's useful!